Five-Star Trails Louisville & Southern Indiana ─ Your Guide to the Area's Most Beautiful Hikes

Known as the City of Parks, Louisville has long valued the natural landscape and the provisioning of outdoor recreation. In 1891 Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture, was commissioned to develop an extensive park system for Louisville that eventually included 18 parks and 6 interconnecting parkways. Since that time, Louisville has continued to invest resources to build a first-class park system. Nestled within the Ohio Valley, and bordered by the knobs region to the south and the heavily forested areas of Indiana to the north, Louisville lies at the heart of an endless array of hiking opportunities.

Five-Star Trails: Louisville showcases many of the hiking trails and walking paths within the city or within easy driving distance in central Kentucky and southern Indiana. Designed specifically for day trips, this book includes several of the area's most popular parks, as well as many of the lesser-known hiking trails in nature preserves, wildlife management areas, and national forests.

After more than 20 years in academia, Valerie Askren traded the life of living in the proverbial ivory towers to spend more time exploring the forested areas and sandstone arches of central Kentucky. An avid outdoorswoman, she has swum in Lake Malawi; climbed Mount Tai; sailed the coast of southern France; biked Nova Scotia; backpacked across Canada; and survived the biting cold of farm life in the Ukraine. Her honeymoon was spent kayaking the Grand Canyon with her husband, Ben.

Valerie’s background in natural resource economics and her love of nature have translated into a second career writing hiking guides. Her busy life has resulted in the newfound motto of ?Think Global. Hike Local.” Living in Lexington, Kentucky, she is always near a peaceful wooded path, beautiful public garden, or historical walking trail. The mother of four, Valerie still manages to keep clean sheets on the beds and make fresh sushi once a week.